


bad skin day

by Siria



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Community: non_mcsmooch, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-11-17
Updated: 2008-11-17
Packaged: 2017-10-03 05:07:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siria/pseuds/Siria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A puddlejumper never feels smaller than at moments like this: when the ramp is finally lowered and the rain-rich air of New Athos' autumn floods in, washing away the sourness of more than a dozen people who've spent too many hours crammed close and breathing one another's fear.</p>
            </blockquote>





	bad skin day

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [Perspi](http://perspi.livejournal.com). With thanks to [Cate](http://sheafrotherdon.livejournal.com) for betaing.

A puddlejumper never feels smaller than at moments like this: when the ramp is finally lowered and the rain-rich air of New Athos' autumn floods in, washing away the sourness of more than a dozen people who've spent too many hours crammed close and breathing one another's fear. Necessity breeds a certain kind of acceptance, and everyone had sat or stood in silence for as long as they had to endure the flight; but now, with the door opening onto a calm and placid world, there's a rush to be out from beneath the jumper's low and confining ceiling.

Rodney swivels the pilot's chair around to watch them go—the Marines and the mothers; Radek, carrying a sleeping child with an awkward and distracted air; Amelia Banks, limping, her hair askew—but makes no move to follow them. Teyla, looking him over with a practised eye, sees written in the slump of his shoulders all the signs of an exhaustion so deep that tendons and sinews can barely push against it to let him stand. He is tired, as they all are, but there is more to it than that; the set of his mouth speaks of self-reproach, a guilt that must be gnawing at him even though, from what Teyla has seen over the last three days, she is truly convinced that such an emotion must be unwarranted.

She stands, the breath forced from her lungs in a little _oof_ at the way each particular vertebra in her spine shifts and cracks. It is has been a long three days, and it is long past time for her to carry out those little rituals which never fail to bring her back to herself: a hot bath laced with sweet oils; clean clothes and her bare feet sinking into a carpet's deep pile; her son tucked warm and laughing into the crook of her arm. Her heart cries out for ease, and Teyla knows she will find it as soon as she ducks her head to step into her family's tent—but she also knows that there is no small measure of solace to be found where there is love.

Teyla reaches out and rests a careful hand on Rodney's shoulder; under her palm, the set of his shoulder is tense, and there is a stain on the cloth that looks like blood. She waits patiently until he registers her presence, until he calls his mind back from wherever it has wandered; his eyes are wide and bloodshot when he looks up at her, and his jaw is stubble-shaded.

"Seventeen," he says.

"Seventeen," Teyla repeats, but gladly—seventeen saved is no small thing, and her heart rejoices for each of those seventeen lives—and before Rodney can duck his head, she stoops to brush her lips against his. He doesn't respond at first, his mouth still and silent, but when he begins to speak to her, his fear and his loneliness and his guilt tremble out of him—an insistent tumble that has more meaning behind it than any combination of vowels and consonants ever could. Teyla listens, and presses closer when Rodney's hands come up to tangle in her hair; her kiss doesn't offer softness, but compassion, the clarity that she has won with such painful costs over the years.

When he pulls back, Rodney rests his forehead against hers. His hands are no longer trembling, but his breathing is easier, and Teyla lets go of her own worries on an exhale. "You did well, Rodney," she says, certainty steadying her voice. "You did well; I am proud of what we accomplished." Rodney laughs, and Teyla is sure he thinks she has picked up John's terrible habit of using irony to deflect from the truth, but she is being honest—pride has brought them both to worse places than this; pride has brought them here, to the end of a journey under a gentling rain.


End file.
